Poker card games have long been known and widely used. The term “poker” has been generally used to describe variations of card games in which players bet that they hold the highest-ranking hand.
Single-player variations of poker games have also become popular. In one typical single-player variation, a user of a gaming device places a wager to initiate play of a hand. The hand is provided with a number of randomly dealt cards from a deck, and the user may optionally select a number of cards from the hand to be discarded and replaced with replacement cards also dealt from the deck (e.g. a process known as “drawing”). Subsequently, a payout to the user is determined based on the cards in the hand upon completion of the drawing process, typically by comparing the rank of the hand with a payout associated with that rank as identified in a payout table.
The gaming devices upon which such single-player variations of poker games are played may include, for example, video poker machines, computing devices, or other devices. A gaming device may operate as a standalone unit, or it may be coupled to other gaming devices in a network.
It is often desirable for operators of gaming devices to provide users with poker games designed to encourage players to extend their play on the gaming devices.